Government IT has been humming with valiant efforts to embrace modernization in order to increase efficiency and improve upon fulfilling agency mission. Yet, without a well-organized and transparent IT portfolio and a focus on Enterprise Architecture (EA), missions run the risk of falling flat with innovation puttering out as transformation efforts get lost in the noise.

While there is legitimate concern that government change is becoming stagnant, there remain change agents who have and continue to utilize IT modernization and innovation to its fullest potential. Tim Hunnicutt- Senior Enterprise Architect, Army, Office of Business Transformation- recently discussed his dedication to the Army’s mission. Hunnicutt shared that Army has embraced “an adopt, not adapt approach to portfolio management” with a 5 year plan for building and transforming enterprise architecture.

Even with good intentions and the foresight to know that a well-structured plan is necessary, organizations also need to ensure agility is infused into EA. Ultimately, agility and transformation success can be achieved by maximizing an agency’s IT portfolio management. Within a strong EA, you can incorporate new and creative ways to increase productivity and agency mission by:

Tying in mission values across all IT assets and programs

Infusing agility into enterprise architecture; and

Ensuring all transformation efforts are transparent

Hunnicutt also shared that Army has been working on enterprise architecture for over a decade, saying that Army’s tool for modernization and transformation is the Army Enterprise Knowledge Repository. The repository provides the Army business mission area with a business system architecture that supports data intensive needs by:

Integrating a trusted architecture

Applying data integration

Reducing costs; and

Ensuring business and technical data

Congruently, Christopher Steel- Chief Solutions Architect at Software AG Government Solutions- shares that what often gets left in the shadows is IT transparency which should be considered a must. Agencies need to get a handle on their enterprise by collecting all managed data in one central repository with a role-based interface to support stakeholder collaboration, similar to Army’s Knowledge Repository. Steel recently concluded in a webinar, titled “Fueling Transformational Success through Portfolio Management and Enterprise Architecture” that “through EA portfolio management, agencies can stop struggling to manage their IT portfolios and achieve IT transformation success.”

To learn more about the importance of Enterprise Architecture and IT transparency to modernization and transformation efforts, click here to view the archived webinar.